A recent grad and new adult learning to navigate through life and live it without limits

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Look Back At It

Okay okay, I KNOW it’s pretty much three weeks into the new year but work has been getting the best of me and I can’t really go back to a normal life until February.

But in the spirit of the new year, I wanted to reflect on my 2017 and everything that I’ve learned as well as get my goals for 2018 out into the world!

While I feel like it’s become so normalized to moan and groan along with everybody else at the end of the year “ugh, this was the worst year ever” I paused and realized that 2017 was one of my greatest years ever. Yes, there were some big events that happened in the world that made it not so great for many, but for the majority it was a positive and productive year but for some reason all of that gets forgotten. For me, I began my job a few weeks before the start of 2017 but I’ll include it in my 2017 accomplishments because it was so sudden and right after finishing college. Since then, I’ve traveled to New York for work and have even gotten promoted to Associate Producer!

I officially graduated from college in May and had the opportunity to travel out of the country for the first time over the summer. I fell in love with London and have started scheming up plans to get myself back there. During my trip I also got to visit Paris, Amsterdam, Krakow, and so many more amazing places. I was also a part of my cousin’s wedding and got to be with my role model on her special day!

My most recent milestone that happened this year was finally moving out! While the first few days were rough and lonely, I’ve grown to love my space. Being close to work has also just given me more time in my life now that I don’t have a two-hour commute and has made a positive impact on every other aspect of my life.

And of course, in the spring I did start this blog and while I paused on it for a bit, I’ve re-found my passion and even made my instagram for it public (which caused a lot of anxiety). Although I haven’t been consistent, I love being able to share my thoughts and ideas here and be able to possibly help someone out in any way. It has been a great way to express myself and makes me genuinely happy!

Of course, like anybody else, there were some bad days in 2017. However, if you ask me to pick a day and tell you what made it so horrible, I couldn’t and if I could, it is completely irrelevant to my life now. That in itself has taught me that there may be bad days and I’m not wrong in feeling that everything sucks in that moment, but in the end, the good days will outshine them all.

I’ve also learned, but haven’t perfected, my time management skills. With that, I realized that I can’t do a million things each day and that’s okay! I’ve also met and worked with a variety of people and have definitely improved my skills there and with delegating different tasks.

Now onto the present- 2018! With a whole year of opportunities ahead, there are so many more things to do and learn, but I’ll break them up into little categories to make it easier.

Career: I plan on staying at the job I’m at this year but using my time off to work on different freelance projects and network with people outside of my little bubble. I want to keep working on this blog more consistently and begin creating video content since I love production and editing and can easily take what I share here and put it in video format too! I will also begin to look into different job opportunities abroad since I do want to make the move to London in late 2019 for a year. (P.S. my dream job is with Discovery Communications, preferably in digital media or production, and have the ability to live in different places with their offices all over the world!) I also plan on learning more about basic finances, saving, and becoming financially independent by the end of the year.

Health and Fitness: While I’ve always enjoyed going to the gym, towards the end of 2017 is when I finally began doing research into health and fitness and really taking control. This year, I want to keep that up and try new things and know why things do or don’t work the way that they do. I want to experiment more with food and creating more easy and healthy options for me to enjoy and share and I want to continue to get stronger at the gym. I learned that weights are my prefered form of exercise and although I’ve always done them a little bit, I have been and want to continue to work on my form and strength. I also want to incorporate a bit more cardio for my health and stretch more daily! Before 2018, I set a goal for myself to do one unassisted pull-up by my 23rd birthday (in March) and I did it on December 29th! I was super ecstatic to have reached that fitness goal of mine but was bummed to have to think of a new goal, but I have decided that I want to be able to back squat double my bodyweight by the middle of the year (I currently weigh 125 lbs and can squat 3 reps at 165 lbs). I am also spending these first few months of 2018 tracking my period since I have finally gotten off my birth control and want to have healthy and happy hormones.

Life: I want to spend more time with my friends and people I care about now that I have more free time and energy, as well as meet new people with similar interests as mine. As of now, everybody I know is through school or work and they are all amazing but meeting new people is how you can learn, grow, and experience new things which I really want to do. I also can’t get rid of my anxiety but I can control how I react to it and I want to practice being more calm and persistent, especially in times of stress. And as someone who has always wanted control in her life, I learned this past year that that need creates more stress over things that I simply can’t control so I just need to set my focus in a general area but let life take the lead. While I can’t get myself to sit down and relax my mind long enough to meditate (maybe with some practice) I do want to be more mindful and present, especially in the presence of others. I also want to travel more, I may not have the time or money to do a month in Europe all the time, but I have Los Angeles and all of the cool places around here and although I grew up here, I have never really gotten to explore it!

Well those are my 2018 goals in a (large) nutshell! I didn’t create any resolutions because these have been things that I have already been working on or learning and simply want to expand and focus on. Resolutions also get a bad rap, typically don’t last long, and also imply that I want to fix something that is broken. And while there is always room for improvement and growth, I like to think that I don’t have any major issues or habits that need to be fixed.